Bad Pickup Lines
by lostbutnotforgotten
Summary: Everyone's at the bar when Teddy and the other newbies get a MerDer history lesson.


**A/N: So this is a random fic that I decided to write back near the end of season 6 and the beginning of season 7 because there kept being moments where it was clear that the new characters were just not aware of things that happened before they showed up. A lot of this was inspired by 7x09 when the attendings all got drunk in the bar, except that everyone is here. So basically, this is set somewhere in or around season 7, but no one is crazy, pregnant or fighting. (I know that never happened in season 7 but whatever.**

**Summary: Everyone's at the bar when Teddy and the other newbies get a MerDer history lesson. **

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><p><strong>Bad Pickup Lines<strong>

It seemed like practically the whole hospital was sitting around a table at Joe's celebrating yet another medical triumph in their ranks when Teddy walked in and crashed down on the table with a groan. "Another dud?" Callie asked sympathetically.

Teddy groaned in response. "Yes," She started to speak as she picked up a random drink off the table and downed it in one gulp. "Get this. The first thing out of his mouth when we get to the restaurant is asking me what I would put on my ideal pizza. I mean who even asks that? And what the hell is an ideal pizza?" Teddy reached out and grabbed another drink off the table and drank it. "Okay who do I owe drinks to?" She added almost as an afterthought. She groaned when Alex and Arizona raised their hands.

"On our first date Cristina asked me what my best surgery was." Owen informed the group with a smile. "Somehow that led to us not having diner and just showering together instead. I'm not really sure how that happened…" Owen trailed off.

Cristina rolled her eyes, "Uh yeah, you probably don't remember because you were completely drunk and we didn't have diner because you were so late that we missed our reservation." In spite of her sour tone she had a slight smile on her face.

"Oh Teddy, you can't judge them by the first question. It's almost never good. Derek's was terrible." Meredith informed with a smile.

"Oh I don't think I've ever heard how you guys met," Arizona said as several inhabitants of the table groaned.

"Neither have I," April spoke up, looking interested. Now that her crush on Derek had passed she was excited to hear how her friends had met.

"Well I was actually sitting right over there," Meredith pointed to her once favorite spot at the bar. "I'd just skipped out of my intern mixer and was ready to do some shots. So I'm minding my own business when this guy comes up beside me and says," She paused to get her inflection just right, "Is this a good place to hang out?" She did her best Derek impression while the whole table groaned at the terrible pickup line.

"That is not what I sound like!" Derek tried to defend himself while everyone just laughed.

"It's okay Derek you were very cute," Meredith told him in a patronizing tone.

"So what happened after that?" April asked eagerly.

"After that she took him home and screwed his brains out," Cristina informed the group with a laugh.

Teddy just groaned, "You see! This is why I hate my life. I get cheesy pickup lines and I end up drowning my sorrows at a bar. Grey gets them and it's a freaking fairytale." She was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol she had consumed and as a result her arms were pretty much waving around at random as she spoke.

"Oh it definitely wasn't a fairytale." Bailey said with a small chuckle and she took another sip of her drink.

"Bailey's right, I didn't get my fairytale just then." Meredith gave Derek a knowing smile.

"Oh really?" Teddy asked, "What was wrong? Was he too charming? Did he love you too much?" Looking at the two of them as they were Teddy couldn't fathom any actual problems they would have had starting out.

"Well first off, I was not looking for forever with the random stranger I picked up in the bar, and then to make matters worse he didn't end up being a stranger at all." Meredith found herself needing a drink of her own. She took a shot and signaled to Joe for another. "See after a really great night, I kicked the cute boy out of my bed in no uncertain terms."

This is where Derek interrupted, "Really though Mere, you didn't actually kick me out of bed. Remember you hadn't finished moving into your house yet. You were still planning on selling it."

"Oh right," Meredith agreed with a wistful smile, "I hadn't set up my bedroom yet. We did it on the living room floor."

All of her roommates groaned with several choruses of, "Eww" and, "I study there" coming from around the table.

"Oh whatever like we haven't done it on every square inch of that house by now anyway," Meredith rolled her eyes.

"It's true," Lexie said while the others groaned, "You should have seen them the first few weeks after they did their post-it. It was so gross."

"Yeah, they were pretty much vomit-inducing for a while there," Alex added with a smile to Meredith to show it was all in good fun.

"Anyway, you kicked him out of your bed and then what?" Arizona asked half out of actual curiosity and half to change the subject from all the places Meredith and Derek had had sex. There were some things she just didn't need to know about her colleagues.

"Right so I kicked him out of my house figuring I would never see him again and just got ready for my first day as an intern," Meredith began again.

"Oh I kind of see where this is going," April said with a smile.

"Yup," Meredith started, "I went into the hospital and was just minding my own business when who should I run into but cute Derek of the bad pickup line. And not only was he there but he was my boss."

Derek laughed, "I was your bosses boss," He said with a flirty smile.

"Right," Meredith said, trying and failing to sound annoyed. "You can see the problem at any rate."

"So you didn't get together right away?" Teddy asked with curiosity.

"Nope. She did her best to resist me. I chased her around for weeks and I remember she even kissed a patient while she was avoiding me." Derek told the group with a smile.

"What?" Meredith asked incredulously. "I. Did. Not." She emphasized each word as she spoke.

"Oh but you did Mere," Derek said with a smile, "That crazy biker. God what was his name? Scorpion? Raptor?"

"Viper," Alex announced with a laugh.

"Right," Derek agreed, "I'm doing everything in my power to win her over and she kisses that Snake guy."

"Oh for crying out loud I didn't kiss him. He kissed me and then I never even spoke to him again." Meredith defended herself with indignation.

"Yes you did," Alex informed her, "He had to come back for surgery and you definitely talked to him."

Meredith rolled her eyes as Derek began again, "Right so I'm thinking Spider has it all figured out. Just grab her and kiss her. Seems simple enough. So I went to find her in the intern locker room one night and she's in the middle of some kind of altercation with Karev." Derek laughs out loud at the memory, "She had him pushed up against the locker with her elbow jammed into his throat, and she's screaming that he smells or something."

"Oh whatever, my elbow wasn't in his throat. I was just making sure he understood that I wouldn't be accepting that kind of behavior from him. I think it was a lesson well learned." Meredith tried to explain without explaining.

"Yeah. Look at her and look at me. There's no way she could ever push me anywhere unless I let her." Alex tried to defend his masculinity.

Derek just laughed, "Whatever Alex, she totally kicked your ass."

"So what does that have to do with you guys finally getting together?" Callie asked. She'd been around but this was a part of the story that she was pretty hazy on.

"Well I pretty much took off after he busted me fighting with Alex but the next day he found me in the locker room again and told me everything he liked about me. I don't really remember what he said but I think I fell just a little bit in love with him in that moment," Meredith sighed as she stared off into space, lost in the memory, "It was Very McDreamy," She added with a smile.

"Is that where the nickname came from?" Arizona asked.

"No that was me," Cristina spoke up. "I forget exactly where it came from but it wasn't really meant as a compliment."

"It was when the chief made me carry around that severed penis," Meredith said as if that explained everything.

Derek, whose mind was still back in the locker room, just touched Meredith's face and said to her, "I told you I wasn't just after you because of the thrill of the chase; that it wasn't just a game. And I said I liked your tiny ineffectual fists, and the way your hair always smells like flowers, and that I liked it when you boss me around." He smiled at her and she just got lost in his eyes for a moment. "It's all still true too," he added. All of the women around the table sighed and propped their faces in their hands.

"And that was pretty much it. I resisted for a little bit longer but I ended up completely falling in love with him and I've been a goner ever sense. I'm completely ruined for other men." Meredith summed up, still lost in Derek's eyes.

Alex and Cristina both laughed. "Seriously?" Cristina asked.

"That's it?" Alex continued incredulously.

"Yeah, what about his wife?" Cristina added.

"And that crazy string of guys you slept with," Alex added with a smirk.

"Well we had our problems in the beginning but we've got it figured out now…" Meredith tried to defend.

"Wait, I'm sorry, did you just say he had a wife when they met?" Teddy asked Cristina.

"Well he was technically married but cut the guy some slack…" Mark started.

"Yeah I'm pretty sure that at the point when Derek was chasing Meredith, Addison was shacked up with Mark in some kind of New York love nest." Callie added with a sideways glance at Mark.

"Addison was Derek's wife if anyone didn't get that," Bailey added, clearly more than slightly inebriated.

"You were shacked up with his wife?" Owen asked Mark with a shocked expression.

"What is this 'shacked up' thing? Is it 1985?" Mark didn't really have an actual defense for himself so he worked with what he had.

"So Derek finds Addison and Mark in bed together and decides he just has to get out of there and makes his escape to Seattle where he meets and falls in love with Meredith totally by accident," Callie explains to the group, "It's almost kind of romantic."

"I thought you were on Addie's side?" Mark looked at Callie in bewilderment.

"I love Addie," Callie started, "I do. She's completely fabulous and amazing," She paused for a moment, "But I think that Derek coming out here and starting his life over was maybe a little brave and finding his soulmate showed that sometimes the grand gesture pays off," she half smiled in Derek's direction before adding, "You know, before he completely screwed it all up."

Derek cringed, "You know I think we're getting too far into this story," he loosened his tie a bit, "I mean this was just supposed to be the story of my bad pickup line. We're getting off topic," He had a pleading look on his face.

"Oh no Shepherd, I want to hear how you completely screwed it all up!" Teddy shouted at him while waving her drink in his general direction.

"So they had been dating for a couple months when Addison just shows up out of nowhere," Cristina started.

"And Mere had no idea that she even existed," Alex added with a chuckle.

"Oh Shepherd, that's terrible," Teddy was looking at him like he was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

"You don't even know the half of it," Bailey sighed.

"What happened?" April asked with wide eyes.

Cristina picked up the story from there, "What happened is that even after Meredith decided to forgive him for having a secret life and confessed her undying love for him, Derek still decided to dump her and get back together with his wife."

There was a collective gasp from everyone who hadn't heard the story before, including Owen and Jackson, who quickly tried to feign disinterest.

"Oh Shepherd, tell me you didn't," Teddy begged, when he just shook his head she turned to Meredith, "And you didn't just let him go?" She asked a little judgmentally.

"Oh believe me I tried," Meredith said tragically.

"Yeah that's where the random sting of nameless guys comes in," Alex added helpfully as Meredith rolled her eyes.

Just then Cristina burst out laughing. When everyone one turned to stare at her she laughed some more before asking, "Oh my god, do you remember Steve?" when everyone just stared at her she elaborated, "You know, Steve. Steve with the neural problem," when everyone just continued to stare she went on, "Steve with the very BIG neural problem," she pointed discreetly to her lap.

All at once Bailey somewhat drunkenly pointed a finger in the air and said, "Ooohhh!" while Alex busted up laughing and Meredith threw her head down on the table in misery.

"Do tell," said Arizona, raising her eyebrows at Cristina.

"So Meredith's all sad and brokenhearted and she's practically got a revolving door on her bedroom at this point…" Cristina started before she was cut off by Meredith kicking her under the table, "So one morning there's this guy and he just gets up and runs out of the house without so much as a word to Meredith, and of course being Meredith she just thinks, all the better. It saved her the trouble of kicking him out." Cristina summed up the morning.

"That is until the guy showed up at the hospital," Alex continued a bit too gleefully.

"What was wrong with him?" April asked innocently.

"Well it was a problem of a somewhat delicate nature," Derek tried to gloss over it diplomatically.

Unfortunately for him Bailey was drunk enough to not care much about the patient's privacy, "Meredith broke the boys penis," she said with a laugh.

"I did not!" Meredith tried to protest, "He had a brain tumor." She said with finality.

"What does a brain tumor have to do with his penis?" Owen asked a bit bluntly. He realized that he was getting pretty drunk himself. He sure hoped there weren't any disasters tonight because half the hospital seemed to be drunk in this bar.

"Let's just say his Private was stuck at attention," Cristina said a bit too gleefully, using a military euphemism that she thought Owen would appreciate.

The whole table let out a collective, "Ohh…" of understanding except April who, with a confused expression said, "I don't get it."

"Oh for crying out loud," said Bailey, who was sitting right next to her. She pulled April's arm toward her a bit and then whispered in her ear. April said nothing, but looked a little green. "So anyway," Bailey continued sot the whole table, "We spent all morning running every test we could think of until we only had one option left."

"A Neuro consult," Meredith finished for her.

Teddy laughed and put her hand over her mouth, "You had a one night stand with a broken penis and you had to call your ex-boyfriend to fix it?" She asked, astounded. "I gotta say, I'm hating you two less and less by the minute," She added with a smile.

"It was mortifying," Meredith groaned with her face on the table.

"Well it wasn't really a picnic for me either," Derek responded.

"At least neither of you had it as bad a poor Steve must have," Lexie mused.

"So I still don't see how you got from there to here," Teddy complained, trying to being the conversation back on track.

"Well there's not too much to it," Meredith tried to hedge, "I started dating a guy and Derek went crazy with jealously. We ended up fighting for a long time until it all just exploded in a fit of passion and we made love at prom," Meredith attempted to finish the story quickly. "And we lived happily ever after," She added with a smile.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Teddy waved her hand in the air in front of her, as if to clear away some obstruction to her view, "Go back. What do you mean prom?" she asked.

"Oh the chief threw a prom at the hospital for his niece and made everyone go," Callie explained.

"Oh that sounds fun!" Arizona said with a flirty smile, "I'd totally go to prom with you."

Mark groaned and continued the story, "So anyway, Derek went with Addison and Meredith went with McVet," Mark started to explain, "What was that guy's name again?" he paused briefly before continuing, "Nevermind, who cares. The point is, these two just totally ditched their prom dates and went and did the nasty in an exam room."

"What? No way. Really?" April looked scandalized. "I hope you resterilized the room when you were done."

"Eww, can we not talk about serialization, that was possibly the single most romantic moment of my life," Meredith said indignantly.

Derek reached out and grabbed her hand with a dreamy smile, "For me too Mere," he said before kissing her cheek.

"Yeah until Addison put your panties on the bulletin board," Cristina said with her usual amount of charm.

"What?" Bailey looked up from where she appeared to be falling asleep in her drink, "I knew those were your panties!" she said triumphantly.

"Okay, you lost me again," Arizona said.

"Well it would seem… though I never really got a clear explanation on this," Meredith began, "It appears that Derek kept my panties after the exam-room sex, and then somehow Addison found them and put them up on the bulletin board. You know I'm still not too clear on the details," She finished, turning expectantly to Derek.

Derek at least had the decency to look abashed. "I swear I picked them up to give them back to you," he said, "But then the whole night went pretty crazy and I never got the chance and I didn't know Addie was going to check my pockets," He tried to defend himself.

"So anyway," Alex took over the next part of the story, "The next day we all come in to work and all of the sudden Bailey's screaming about panties," He laughed raucously.

"And Cristina's elbowing me and whispering 'Claim them! Claim them!' because she'd just gotten caught doing that striptease for Burk and figured everyone would think they were hers," Meredith said, laughing a bit, "And of course there's no way in hell I'm claiming them, but it was starting to look like I wouldn't have a choice when Callie saved me." Meredith flashed a smile at Callie.

"Awe, you saved the day?" asked Arizona.

But Callie never got the chance to respond because Owen, who was really starting to feel the effects of his alcohol consumption, looked up and said, "Wait, did she just say you did a striptease for Burk?"

Cristina groaned, "Yes, but it was a onetime thing, so don't get any ideas," she wanted to nip that in the bud. "Besides, the only reason I did it was because he just got shot in the arm." She added, as if that would clinch it.

Owen just stared at her blankly for a second before saying, "But I got shot in the arm too…"

"Still not gonna happen," Cristina said.

At the same time Mark burst out with, "Hey, I never put that together before! That's pretty weird!"

Just then Derek's pager went off. He was the only one who hadn't been drinking because he was waiting for some lab results to see if he would need to operate. "Okay, I have to go check on this. I'll try to be back soon," he said as he stood up, kissed Meredith goodbye and headed for the door.

"So is that when you guys lived happily ever after?" Teddy asked, bringing them back around to the original subject.

Meredith sighed, "Well not quite, but I think we're all too drunk to talk about this anymore," she gestured around the table where everyone seemed to be in various states of dozing off or serious contemplation. "Maybe some other time I'll tell you all about our house of candles," she finished with a smile.

"You're right," Teddy said. "I think I'm just going to head home and sleep this day away." She stood up and threw some bills down on the table.

"Hold on we'll share a cab with you," Arizona said as she stood up, dragging an exhausted Callie behind her. With that everyone started clearing out of the bar. Cristina and Alex both offered to share a cab ride with Meredith, but she decided to wait to see what Derek's plans were and so she ended up alone at the bar.

She smiled at Joe and just ordered a water. As she sat nursing her drink she felt a presence behind her right before she heard Derek whisper in her ear. "So is this a good place to hang out?" he asked in a husky tone.

She just burst out laughing and said, "Sorry, that line only gets to work once in a lifetime I think." She turned and smiled at him. "No surgery?" she asked.

"No surgery," he confirmed. "Let's go home," he said as he took her hand and lead her away from the bar.

"I was just thinking about the real reason I decided to go home with you that first night," Meredith said conversationally as she got her coat on. "Do you remember what you said to me after you pathetic pickup line?"

"No," he replied as he tried to think of the answer. "Why? Was it terrible too?" he asked with a cringe.

"No, it was great," She pulled him close; "You told me that if I knew you I would love you."

"I did?" he responded with a dreamy smile. When she nodded he asked, "So was I right?" just so he could hear the answer.

"You were so right," She said as they walked out the door, "Now take me home."

**END**


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